Hi everyone, it’s Tiffany again! I hope everyone is doing well! Kevin and I are nearly finished our month on Zanzibar as we leave tomorrow, which we have really enjoyed.
After we left Kendwa beach in the north of Zanzibar we came back to Stone Town for two nights where we spent most of the days wandering around the streets that wind endlessly with no real rhyme or reason. Stone Town is kind of like an Arabic-inspired and somewhat dirtier version of Venice but Kevin and I love it and every time we come back here it feels a little like coming home. One of the nights we went out for dinner at this very “homey” little place called Sambusa Two Tables, and I say “homey” because it is literally inside someone’s home. You walk up the stairs of the house and come into their living room where the kids are watching TV and then sit down at one of the two tables in the enclosed balcony area where we were served with 5 courses of traditional Zanzibari cuisine. The meal consisted of: vegetable soup with chapatti, lentil curry with doughnut type bread, delicious and fresh beef samosas, vegetable fritters with coconut sauce, and finally beef masala with vegetable saffron rice all of which was really tasty. Most of all it was a really cool experience to not know what we were going to be eating and how many courses were coming all the while sitting in someone’s house. We also found this great father-son leather shop where we both got a pair of sandals that friends of ours from Zanzibar swear by and Kevin got an awesome leather shoulder bag for school, which was a bit of a splurge but well worth it.
Soon we left Stone Town and headed to Jambiani beach on the south-east side of the island for one week. We had reservations at this one place but when we arrived we quickly realized that it was certainly not worth the $35 per night. We walked around and found another place which was an actual hotel with nice big, clean rooms, comfortable beds, an ensuite bathroom, a/c, wireless internet, an infinity pool overlooking the ocean, great full breakfasts, and use of a bunch of sporting equipment all for $45 a night because we went and talked to the owner and told him our price range and he decided to give us a great deal! We were super excited so we moved the next day and spent six nights there. On our first night at dinner Kevy ordered sea urchin pasta, which had the texture of a creamy ground beef. It was a little strange and I think I liked it more than Kevy did but interesting to try nonetheless. We also met a really nice couple from New York and had some great dinners and spent most of the time relaxing and reading along with lounging in the pool. One of the greatest things was there was a TV and it had the Food Network! I relished in a great episode of the Barefoot Contessa along with several other shows and even got to watch some Jamie Oliver!
Jambiani beach was not as nice as Kendwa as the tides go out very far every six hours and we would have to walk quite a ways to get to the water. Also there was a ton of seaweed there, but the cool thing was that many of the women from the community harvest the seaweed so we could walk out and see them with their seaweed farms all along the beach. Kevin and I also went kayaking one day which was a lot of fun. We really enjoyed our three weeks of being at the beaches on Zanzibar although we are definitely ready to move on and start doing something else too.
Yesterday we got back to Stone Town and again spent the day meandering in the streets. Last night we went out for dinner at this place called Monsoon Restaurant where we had to take off our shoes to go into this nice room where we sat on cushions on the floor to eat dinner. We had a great Swahili meal and best of all there was live Zanzibari Taurab music, which consisted of three guys playing a cool drum, this lap harp type instrument and a fat and curved guitar type instrument! Obviously I have no idea what these were all called but they looked really neat, sounded great and the guys sang and Kevin and I enjoyed every second of it!
Today we will wander around some more and poke about in curio shops, which are everywhere haggling over the prices of some souvenirs I’m sure. We leave to go back to Dar es Salaam tomorrow, where we will stay for three nights and then we plan to head up to a town called Lushoto in the Usambara Mountain Range which is apparently lush and beautiful and great for hiking. After that we will go to Moshi, which is the town at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro where we plan to do some hiking (though not the whole mountain as it costs $1500 each usually!), and then we will make our way up to Kenya!
We have just less than three weeks now until we fly back to Liberia and then back to Canada from there and we are really excited to come home even though we are enjoying our time here.
We hope everyone is doing well and we miss you all. We will keep you up to date on our travels!
Go Steelers! (That one’s for you Roo!! Haha)
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